Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-12-22
rAILY RECORD UNION
THURsDAY.......-..DE CEMBER s2, 1887
TEE SLAVE TRADE DEVELOPMENTS.

The story comes from San Francisco that
the Chinese Consul-General at that place
is greatly pleased with the conviction of
Wong the slave-dealer, and with the Sc
verify of the punishment visited upon him.
We can very readily understand that he
should be. The Consul-General is intelli
gent enough to realize in what bad light
this slave importation business places his
country. The governing class in China
would probably put stop to the traffic in
human flesh were it possible for them to
do SO. The sale of children, dependent
relatives, and notably of girls, in China, is
matter as yet beyond control. Behind
the Government, autocratic and powerful
as it is, are the people, with the supersti-
tions, customs and traditions of thousands
of years. The first are not to be commanded
at once to abandon factor of the patri-
archial system, nor is the other to be
wiped out by an imperial edict. In ma
ton such as China, where the patriarch
rules the family absolutely, even to DEGREES
Of life and death, the Government has
limits beyond which it is powerless, and
one Of the most marked bounds begins at
patriarchs If the paterfamilias DEGREES
that son be sold into servitude that
others OF the household may live, not all
the Imperial power of China can reverse
the decree. Nor does the monarch him
self, or those highest in authority next to
him, venture to commend obedience of a
subject in any matter that invades the sa-
cred realm Of the patriarch of the family.
Until China is regenerated, her supersti-
tions stripped of, and her patriarchism
reduced to the mere offices of respect, there
need not be entertained any hope of blot
ting out the slave traffic, however much
the more enlightened class represented by
the Consul-General may desire it,
1t is said that this official has ordered
the decree of the United States Court in
Wong's case to be forcibly stated in Chi
nese and printed, and that the posters will
be put up throughout the port cities and
in the river towns, that the fears of the
people may be aroused and some check put
upon the shipment of the female slaves
But the dealers will not be thus beaten.
Though in the conviction of Wong, the
chief among them, they have learned
lesson, it is not likely to do more than
quicken their ingenuity to devise methods
of evading the law One of these will be
the importation Of human chattels to the
United States via British territory. 1t is
costly method of importation, but the
extra expense will simply cause rise in
the market price of women. The slaves
will be shipped to the terminus of the
Canadian Pacific Railroad, and once on
that line ii viii not be difficult to pass the
women over the border We have a from
tier of over two thousand miles exposure,
and not fifty customs officers all told guard
so much of it as is on this side the CONT
nent. If, then, the slave dealers set about
to run in their slaves from British terri
tory, ii is difficult to perceive what is
to stop them, under our present regu-
lations, or without a very large increase of
the border customs force and the exercise
of far greater vigilance than we have been
accustomed to put forth in that quarter.